Nature and Morality

understanding the role of morality in fostering conservation and environmental sustainability

My research focuses on examining narratives that broaden our moral concern for others, and particularly in pressing areas where we least expect such broadening to take place (Singer, 1981). I see issues surrounding biodiversity and wildlife protection as a fundamental test of our ability to transcend ourselves and extend our moral concern to include not only ourselves and people like us, but also to include other groups (e.g., immigrants, marginalized communities, and wildlife). Specifically, I am interested in understanding what motivates people to care about wildlife conservation and collective actions, and how they prioritize social and environmental issues. To this end, and in collaboration with the National Geographic Society, I have investigated the role of narratives that compassion is limited (or unlimited) in helping those who are suffering, and the role of image aesthetics and self-transcendent emotions (e.g., awe and elevation) in encouraging empathy for non-human animals.

Effects of communicating the rise of climate migration on public perceptions of climate change and migration (Journal of Environmental Psychology, 2024)

Climate change-induced migration is a rapidly increasing phenomenon estimated to affect millions of people in the coming decades. With increasing media coverage of climate migration, including within the United States, it is critical to understand how to effectively communicate about this issue. In two high-powered experiments of U.S. Democrats and Republicans (& leaners; Study 1: N = 1452; Study 2: N = 1873), we test the effects of fictional news coverage about domestic and international climate-induced migration on climate change and migration risk perceptions, warmth toward migrants, and policy support. We also tested whether including a personal story about a specific migrant alongside numerical trends could increase support for climate change mitigation and aiding potential migrants. Impacts on climate outcomes were minimal: in Study 1, those exposed to different message frames reported similar climate policy support and risk perception in Study 1, and, in Study 2, domestic (but not international) climate migration coverage slightly increased climate risk perceptions and marginally increased mitigation policy support compared to a no-message baseline. In both studies, international migration was perceived as riskier to Americans than domestic migration, and coverage of international migration heighted this perceived risk. Coverage of domestic climate migration, on the other hand, did not boost risk perceptions of that type of migration. Furthermore, coverage of international climate migration led to greater support for adaptation infrastructure to help potential migrants stay home but did not affect support for policies to help migration. Contrary to expectations, the inclusion of personal stories did not affect warmth toward migrants in either study. Political affiliation dominated associations with all climate change and migration outcomes, likely obscuring potential framing effects. These results suggest that coverage about climate-induced migration may face challenges in shifting entrenched public opinion and policy support. Communicators should be aware of the limitations of using this type of coverage to promote constructive actions to address climate change and migration.

Addressing climate change with behavioral science: A global intervention tournament in 63 countries (Science Advances, 2024)

Effectively reducing climate change requires marked, global behavior change. However, it is unclear which strategies are most likely to motivate people to change their climate beliefs and behaviors. Here, we tested 11 expert-crowdsourced interventions on four climate mitigation outcomes: beliefs, policy support, information sharing intention, and an effortful tree-planting behavioral task. Across 59,440 participants from 63 countries, the interventions’ effectiveness was small, largely limited to nonclimate skeptics, and differed across outcomes: Beliefs were strengthened mostly by decreasing psychological distance (by 2.3%), policy support by writing a letter to a future-generation member (2.6%), information sharing by negative emotion induction (12.1%), and no intervention increased the more effortful behavior—several interventions even reduced tree planting. Last, the effects of each intervention differed depending on people’s initial climate beliefs. These findings suggest that the impact of behavioral climate interventions varies across audiences and target behaviors.

An examination of how six reasons for valuing nature are endorsed and associated with pro-environmental behavior across 12 countries (Scientific Reports, 2023)

Balanced samples from 12 countries (N = 12,000) were surveyed about their reasons for valuing nature and pro-environmental behaviors. Results showed that people were least likely to endorse moral-based reasons for valuing nature, as compared to five other reasons (wellbeing benefits, nature’s intrinsic value, health benefits, economic value, identity-based reasons). However, moral- and identity-based reasons (relative to the other four reasons) for valuing nature were the strongest predictors of pro-environmental behavior across three different methods (correlations, linear mixed models, and relative importance analysis) and two pro-environmental behavior categories (consumer behavior and activism). In other words, the reasons for valuing nature most associated with pro-environmental behavior also garnered the weakest support, presenting a potential dilemma for those hoping to leverage values to promote pro-environmental behavior. We also identify a possible mechanism (awareness of one’s environmental impact) to explain why moral- and identity-based reasons for valuing nature best predict behavior. Finally, we examine between-country variability in the endorsement of the six reasons and the reasons’ associations with pro-environmental behaviors, and country-level factors that may explain between-country variability in these outcomes. We discuss these results in the context of broader literature that has focused on an intrinsic vs. instrumental valuation of nature dichotomy.

Climate change-induced immigration to the US has mixed influences on public support for climate change and migrants (Climactic Change, 2023)

Global climate change has begun to cause widespread forced migration and drivers of this phenomenon are expected to intensify in the future, which is likely to result in increased immigration to countries in the Global North such as the USA. Here, two studies examine how belief in this phenomenon could influence Americans’ opinions on climate change and immigration. A correlational pilot study demonstrated that belief in climate-immigration was associated with greater climate change concerns and policy support. It was also associated with attributing more blame to immigrations for their predicament, especially among Republicans. This provides initial correlational evidence that that awareness of climate-induced migration is associated with pro-social responses. However, an experimental messaging study demonstrated that reading about climate-induced immigration (vs. immigration not linked to climate change) did not change participants’ climate concerns or climate policy support. Instead, reading about climate-induced immigration resulted in more negative attitudes toward immigrants. Our findings suggest that, as this issue becomes more salient in political discourse, policymakers, reporters, advocates, and other communicators should attend to the possibility of unintended negative consequences of their messages. Future research is needed to determine how to foster support on climate action while minimizing backlash against immigrants.

The moral significance of aesthetics in nature imagery (Psychological Science, 2022)

To solicit support for nature and wildlife conservation, mission-driven organizations rely on professional nature and wildlife imagery in their media outlets and campaigns. We investigate whether and why the aesthetics of images increase social media engagement and the moral standing of nature and wildlife. In Study 1 (N = 782 U.S. residents), we train a neural network to predict image aesthetics in National Geographic Instagram data. We find a significant relationship between image aesthetics and social media engagement and identify image attributes influencing aesthetics. In Study 2 (N = 775 U.S. residents), we establish the causal effect of aesthetics on i) social media engagement and ii) moral standing and demonstrate a mediating role of self-transcendent emotions (awe and inspiration) and purity intuitions. Study 3 (N = 406 U.S. residents) replicates the results and examines the importance of beauty as a boundary condition. Our research demonstrates the moral significance of image aesthetics.

Harnessing behavioral science to understand and address human impact on the environment: Editors’ note (Behavioral Science & Policy, 2021)

This issue of Behavioral Science & Policy focuses on the defining issue of our time: humankind’s far-reaching effects on the planet. These effects are so vast that scientists say the earth has now entered the Anthropocene epoch, in which human behavior has become the dominant influence on the environment that supports all life on earth. In this reality, environmental challenges are behavioral challenges—and opportunities. The articles in this issue illuminate these connections across the spectrum of behavioral science through empirical studies of interventions that reduce individuals’ energy use, comparisons of discrete behaviors and policies, reviews of how insights from behavioral science can be woven into environmental policies, and macro-level policy proposals to transform institutional structures themselves.

Air pollution, state anxiety, and unethical behavior: A meta-analytic review (Psychological Science, 2020)

In Lu, Lee, Gino, and Galinsky (2018), we reported four studies demonstrating that air pollution predicted unethical behavior and that one mediating mechanism was state anxiety. In contrast, Heck, Thielmann, Klein, and Hilbig (2020) reported one null-effect study on air pollution and unethical behavior and one null-effect study on trait anxiety and unethical behavior. Because any given study offers only pieces of evidence with limited generalizability, researchers faced with conflicting findings must consider the theoretical reasoning and all available empirical studies in the larger literature. To this end, we conducted two meta-analyses, which found that the links among air pollution, state anxiety, and unethical behavior are overall positive and significant. Moreover, we detail five recent papers that provide quasi-experimental evidence for the link between air pollution and unethical behavior.

Polluted morality: Air pollution predicts criminal activity and unethical behavior (Psychological Science, 2018)

Air pollution is a serious problem that influences billions of people globally. Although the health and environmental costs of air pollution are well known, the present research investigates its ethical costs. We propose that air pollution can increase criminal and unethical behavior by increasing anxiety. Analysis of a 9-year panel of 9,360 U.S. cities found that air pollution predicted six different categories of crime; these analyses accounted for a comprehensive set of control variables (e.g., city and year fixed effects, population, law enforcement) and survived various robustness checks (e.g., non-parametric bootstrapped standard errors, balanced panel). Three subsequent experiments involving American and Indian participants established the causal effect of psychologically experiencing a polluted vs. clean environment on unethical behavior. Consistent with our theoretical perspective, anxiety mediated this effect. Air pollution not only corrupts people's physical health, but can also contaminate their morality.

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